Edward chose John Balliol, the one who had the best
right; but he made him understand that, as overlord,
he meant to see that as good order was kept in Scotland
as in England. Now, the English kings had never
meddled with Scottish affairs before, and the Scots
were furious at finding that he did so. They
said it was insulting them and their king; and poor
Balliol did not know what to do among them, but let
them defy Edward in his name. This brought Edward
and his army to Scotland. The strong places
were taken and filled with English soldiers, and Balliol
was made prisoner, adjudged to have rebelled against
his lord and forfeited his kingdom, and was sent away
to France.
Edward thought it would be much better for the whole
country to join Scotland to England, and rule it himself.
And so, no doubt, it would have been; but many Scots
were not willing,—and in spite of all the
care he could take, the soldiers who guarded his castles
often behaved shamefully to the people round them.
One gentleman, named William Wallace, whose home
had been broken up by some soldiers, fled to the woods
and hills, and drew so many Scots round him that he
had quite an army. There was a great fight at
the Bridge of Stirling; the English governors were
beaten, and Wallace led his men over the border into
Northumberland, where they plundered and burnt wherever
they went, in revenge for what had been done in Scotland.
Edward gathered his forces and came to Scotland.
The army that Wallace had drawn together could not
stand before him, but was defeated at Falkirk, and
Wallace had to take to the woods. Edward promised
pardon to all who would submit—and almost
all did; but Wallace still lurked in the hills, till
one of his own countrymen betrayed him to the English,
when he was sent to London, and put to death.
All seemed quieted, and English garrisons—that
is, guarding soldiers —were in all the
Scottish towns and castles, when, suddenly, Robert
Bruce, one of the half English, half Scottish nobles
between whom Edward had judged, ran away from the
English court, with his horse’s shoes put on
backwards. The next thing that was heard of him
was, that he had quarreled with one of his cousins
in the church at Dumfries, and stabbed him to the
heart, and then had gone to Scone and had been crowned
King of Scotland.
Edward was bitterly angry now. He sent on an
army to deal unsparingly with the rising, and set
out to follow with his son, now grown to man’s
estate. Crueller things than he had ever allowed
before were done to the places where Robert Bruce
had been acknowledged as king, and his friends were
hung as traitors wherever they were found; but Bruce
himself could not be caught. He was living a
wild life among the lakes and hills; and Edward, who
was an old man now, had been taken so ill at Carlisle,
that he could not come on to keep his own strict rule
among his men. All the winter he lay sick there;
and in the spring he heard that Bruce, whom he thought
quite crushed, had suddenly burst upon the English,
defeated them, and was gathering strength every day.
